


all covered in exclamation marks

by idontshaveforsher_yesyoudo



Series: Adam Parrish and His Band of Merry (College) Friends [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam Parrish Surprising People, College Student Adam Parrish, Fluff, M/M, Ronan Lynch Visits Adam Parrish at College/University, i guess ?, listen y'all .. Ronan and Adam are Soft As Fuck, theres a tag for that ??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 23:47:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18648589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idontshaveforsher_yesyoudo/pseuds/idontshaveforsher_yesyoudo
Summary: Maia liked Adam Parrish but if she was honest with herself, even after almost a year of working with him at the garage, she felt like she didn’t know him at all.or, Adam Parrish makes a new friend, and said new friend has a hard time figuring him out





	all covered in exclamation marks

**Author's Note:**

> hii this has been sitting on my laptop for ages. I get way too invested in my oc's and I fucking love Maia so like ... bear with me on this. (she's also lowkey based on Maia from shadowhunters even though I don't watch that show anymore)
> 
> also: I love Adam & I'd love if he went to college w/o working on the side but I also know from a few friends of mine that they'd hate only living off their scholarship so like, him working a few hours a week is a compromise I guess? and while I'm discussing my hc's, Ronan is at least half black in this (kinda going off reece king when he had longer hair?), which means he and Maia can bond over their curls being a pain in the ass some days. 
> 
> pls tell me if u spot any errors, the whole work is unbetaed, feedback always much appreciated! title by 'hit my heart' by boy

 

Maia liked a lot of things about Adam Parrish.

She liked that, while he went to a posh Ivy League college, he still worked at the garage she worked at two evenings a week and every other Saturday.

She liked that he was a quiet worker, focused on what he was doing rather than turning up the radio to some weird electro music or singing along to Broadway soundtracks non-stop, as some of her other co-workers did.

She liked sitting on the porch with him during slow days at work, or, when they had a shared break, liked being able to rant about the annoying customers who had visited in his absence, liked listening to him talking about his day, telling stories about his professors and classmates who, for some reason, all seemed to adore him – not that she didn’t get why they would.

It was something in the way Adam walked around so incredibly confident in himself, with his bag filled with books and his hint of southern accent, with his modesty and charm that he didn’t seem to realise he had. The fact that he looked great certainly helped, too, but Maia knew that Adam Parrish would be adored even if his quiet smile and his freckles and his legs didn’t draw everyone in their spell.

Maia liked Adam Parrish but if she was honest with herself, even after almost a year of working with him at the garage, she felt like she didn’t know him at all.

Of course, she knew that he was studying law and that he was from a small town in Virginia. She knew that there was someone back home whom he loved adoringly, knew that he missed his friends but never mentioned his family, knew that he’d gone to a fancy school for rich kids but wasn’t from a rich family at all. She also knew that Adam was vastly private, which meant that, apart from the basics about his life that he’d told her, she had to figure the rest of him out herself.

There were days when he spent their break on his phone, sometimes smiling and joking around and other times swearing like a sailor and insulting whoever was at the other end, but then again switching to grinning like a madman in the flash of a second. There were days when he simply stared into the distance and barely responded when she talked to him.

One time, Maia complained about her afro being dry and losing its volume and the next week, Adam passed her a bottle of something similar to coconut oil (although she was sure it _wasn’t_ coconut oil) and told her he knew someone with the same problem who used this lotion. It worked wonders on Maia’s curls and she’d searched the web to find out where she could buy it again but didn’t get any results. She ended up asking Adam for more and now he brought her new bottles on the regular, never asking for anything in return other than a smile and a chance to rant on about his latest annoying partner in a project.

Another time, she had just started dating a guy called Philip and had talked to Adam about him. She hadn’t been sure if he was into the relationship the same way she was, and when she had voiced her concerns to Adam, he had gestured for her to stay seated on the porch while he’d disappeared into the garage, presumably to get something from his bag. When he’d reappeared, he had been carrying a set of tarot cards and, after he’d laid them out for her, he’d told her she should stay away from Philip because there was another woman involved. She hadn’t really believed him back then, but when she told him a few weeks later that there Philip really had been seeing someone else behind her back, he just nodded and offered to buy her ice cream to get over the guy. There hadn’t been any surprise at his prediction being correct and she’d put it down as another weird thing about Adam Parrish.

There was a growing list of things that she’d noticed about him but didn’t really have an explanation for, and one evening in May, a few weeks before the semester was over and Adam would return home to Virginia for a couple of months, her list got another handful of additions.

Maia had just finished her last oil check of the evening and was cleaning up when a batted-up Camaro parked in the alley. A small girl with braids in all directions and a dress that seemed to consist of three different dresses in different tones of blue sewed together got out of the car from the driver’s seat. She was followed by a guy with the most impressive gelled up hair she had ever seen and the most offensively expensive looking watch ever, and a guy wearing glasses and clothes looking just as expensive as those of Mr. Offensive Watch, looking like a picture-perfect son of a rich family. The latter smiled at Maia and walked towards her.

“Good evening. Our car keeps making weird noises and we’d like to get it checked out, if possible?” He grinned at his companions over his shoulder and then continued, “Please let someone who’s an expert look at it.”

Maia frowned. She disliked all the posh students at Adam’s college and this guy seemed to be one of them. But he also seemed like the type of guy who had the money to get everything he wanted and she really didn’t feel like arguing today so she gestured him to wait and turned to the staff room where she knew Adam would be taking his break. There had been that one time in December with a broken-down car of a similar model to the one outside. Adam had known all the little tricks there were to fixing this Camaros and had repaired it in less than an hour.

“Yo, Adam, there’s a guy outside who wants the best mechanic for fixing a Camaro. You up for it?”

Adam pulled a face, knowing the sort of customers who made demands like that, but he got up from his chair at the table where he seemed to be working on an essay (another thing Maia liked about Adam – that she admired him for, even – was that he never stopped working. No matter how long and hard his day had been, he still found time to do all his homework and pass with flying colours) with a sigh and walked out front, Maia close behind him.

She expected him to put on the face he used to talk to customers, expected him to ask what was wrong with the car and then get them out of the garage as quick as possible. She did not, however, expect for him to exclaim a ‘ _fucking hell’_ and then throw his arms around Perfect Rich Son and hug him tight.

She froze in the doorway and tried to figure out what was going on when they moved apart with matching grins set on their faces and the girl flung herself at Adam and hugged him just as tightly. She pressed a kiss to his cheek and Adam Parrish actually _blushed_ and Maia thought she had maybe finally found a weak spot in his otherwise perfectly put together armour of friendliness and ambition.

And then they disentangled, and Mr. Offensive Watch extended his fist and Adam bumped his against it and they all wore matching smiles on their faces and Maia stood in the doorway and didn’t know what to do with it.

Then Adam shook out of the daze he seemed to be in and turned to her.

“Maia, this is Blue, Henry, Gansey. Guys, Maia.”

Perfect Rich Son – Gansey – shook her hand and told her how pleasant it was to meet her, the girl (what kind of name was Blue, anyway?) gave her a little wave and Henry nodded in her direction.

Adam grinned.

“I have to finish my shift, but it should only be another hour or so, then I can meet you somewhere?”

Maia spoke up, “If you want to go now, I could take your shift. You can take mine tomorrow or the day after.”

“Really? That would be great, Maia. I’ll repay you soon.”

She shook her head and watched as he got his stuff from the staff room and the four of them piled into the car, which, curiously, did not seem to make any noises that suggested it needed a check-up with a mechanic.

 

* * *

 

Adam called the next day to schedule when he should take over her shift and she couldn’t help but ask about the strangers.

“So who were those people yesterday? What were they doing here?”

She can hear him laugh quietly on the other end of the line.

“Oh, they’re friends from back home. They’re on a road trip and were in the area so they decided to drop by, it was kind of a surprise”

Friends from back home, that was interesting. So maybe Blue was the person that he was so enamoured by?

When she asked him, he chuckled.

“Blue? Nah. She’s a friend, but it never worked out between us. She’s occupied with her boyfriends and I got my own at home.”

“You have a boyfriend back home? Why have I never heard about him? Spill.”

“Oh, you’ll meet him soon enough. When he heard that the three of them were taking a break here, he decided to drive up as soon as possible. I can introduce him to you on Thursday.”

 

* * *

 

And meet him on Thursday she did. It went like this:

Adam was finishing fixing up what was hopefully their last car for the evening and Maia was cashing the customer, a middle-aged man who seemed to have nothing better to do than to make snide comments about her afro being ‘unpractical for her work’, even though Adam’s hair was quite long as well, but that’s a double-standard for you. (His hair was getting longer every day and Maia thought that you haven’t lived properly until you’ve seen Adam Parrish with his hair flopping into his eyes, grinning at you from under a car with his dimples and all the crinkles by his eyes).

Thankfully, Adam finished up as soon as the guy was done paying. Maia slung an arm around his shoulder as they waved his car not-so-secretly sarcastically goodbye.

Just then, a black BMW pulled up and Maia sighed. So much for ‘their last car for the evening’. She looked up at Adam to share a look of suffering at what was probably going to be an annoyingly rich trust fund baby with way too high expectations about how his car should be treated. Weirdly enough, Adam wasn’t looking back at her but staring at the car with a small smile on his face.

The door on the driver’s side opened and a guy got out that looked about as far away as possible from what Maia expected. He was tall and lanky and tattooed and wearing a black tank top and there were only a few inches of curly hair similar to her own growing on top of his head.

The guy slammed the door closed behind him and then looked up at the pair standing in front of the garage. A frown appeared on his forehead as he saw Adam’s arm around her waist, then his mouth curled up in a smirk.

“Got yourself a girlfriend while you were away, huh, Parrish?”

And as Maia’s head whipped to the side to look at Adam he replied, “The fuck kinda boyfriend do ya take me for, Lynch?”

His accent was stronger than usual and there was a grin playing on his lips as he disentangled himself from Maia and strode over to the guy. A murmured “Hi”, then they were kissing.

And kissing. And not stopping. And Maia now knew that this was the person Adam talked about so softly every other blue moon when he was in the right mood, but she really didn’t need to see their PDA any longer, and was that a hand under a shirt?

She cleared her throat, loudly. “ _Right_. Maybe wanna introduce me, Adam?”

Adam pulled away, looking sheepish but also so incredibly happy that she couldn’t really be annoyed at him.

“Sorry. Ronan, this is Maia, we work together. Maia, my boyfriend Ronan.”

When Maia extended her hand for Ronan to shake, Ronan raised an eyebrow, his right hand firmly planted on Adam’s hip. Adam elbowed him and Ronan slowly reached forward to meet her grip.

“Hi.”

“’Sup?” Maia replied.

Ronan eyed her in a way that made it clear that he was suspicious, that he didn’t trust her at all, and Maia would have felt insulted if it hadn’t been for the way that his shoulder touched Adam’s ever so slightly, the way that the two of them seemed to gravitate towards each other, the way that Ronan’s little finger intertwined with Adam’s immediately after letting go of Maia’s hand.

Ronan didn’t have a problem with her, personally, she realised, but a general mistrust towards anyone who could hurt Adam, who he hadn’t figured out yet, a fierce sense of protection of his – boyfriend seemed too small a word for what the two of them were, something that made them act as if they knew each other inside and out.

“Right then, I’m gonna close the shop up today. You can leave early if you want to, Adam.”

“Are you sure? I can help if you want to.” There he was, perfect, dutiful Adam Parrish. Maia was about to tell him to _fuck off_ , to take his hot piece of a boyfriend and enjoy the time they have together and that she’ll want the gossip when Ronan is gone again, but Ronan spoke up before she has the chance and says,

“Fucks sake, Parrish, take the offer. We’re supposed to meet Dick and Company in ten minutes.”

“Since when are you the responsible one in this relationship? Gansey won’t mind.”

Ronan snorted. “Yeah, but Blue will be mad and I’m not dealing with that today. She has a new switchblade, or so she texted me.”

“So you can read her texts but mine you ignore. Fuck you, Lynch!”

“Oh, go fuck yourself!”

Maia followed the exchange in silence. It seemed as though they were fighting, it really did, but she knew that look on Adam’s face. It was the same look he got when making fun of dumb customers, when he sassed someone without meaning to, when he wound up one of their co-workers.

She grinned. “Well, I’ll let you to it. Enjoy your evening.”

Adam bumped his fist against where she extended hers. “Thanks, Maia.”

And Maia disappeared into the garage to finish cleaning up what’s left of the day. Outside, she could hear the two of them still bickering back and forth, slamming the doors of the car closed, driving off.

She smiled to herself. The list of things that she didn’t understand about Adam Parrish hadn’t necessarily gotten any shorter, but there were a few things about him that seemed a lot clearer now.

 


End file.
